Banneret Lucian shut the door tightly. The Knight Mentor thought for a moment. "Did your father ever mention the Blackstaff to you?"
"No." Aaron recalled everything Manuel had ever told him and shook his head. "He preferred beating me with the rod we used for grinding flour at home to telling me court secrets."
"That's no way to teach a child. I told Manuel countless times that you can plug a leak with a cork, and that was the only trick he ever learned. But can you stop a waterfall with a cork too?"
Banneret Lucian shook his head in dissatisfaction, then gave Aaron a sympathetic look. "I can hardly imagine how someone as rigid and stern as Manuel managed to raise a son like you."
"Sometimes, extremes produce their opposites." Aaron left it at that and began asking about the Blackstaff.
"This is one of Cormyr's most closely guarded secrets. Your father and I only stumbled upon it while serving together in the kingdom." Banneret Lucian explained what had happened.
Before marrying Azoun IV, Queen Filfaeril had known a legendary archmage from Waterdeep named Khelben Blackstaff Orosan. Even before she met Azoun IV, she and Khelben had been close friends. Apparently, Khelben had also been a dear friend of Filfaeril's father, although their political views and definitions of goodness differed.
After Filfaeril married into Cormyr and became queen, her father remained at odds with the Royal High Wizard of the time, Vangerdahast. Believing that magical affairs should not be decided solely on the word of a single legendary archmage, she hired Khelben Blackstaff Orosan as her private magical adviser, keeping it secret from Vangerdahast.
This had been strictly confidential. Only Manuel, Lucian, and a handful of other Purple Dragon Knights who had attended Azoun IV knew about it.
"Khelben